R.E.M. Announces ‘REMTV,’ a Career-Chronicling Six-DVD Box Set

It hasn’t been often pointed out, but R.E.M. and MTV launched closely around the same time, with “Radio Free Europe” being released as a music video a couple weeks before the onetime music video Mecca/now weird, reality TV haven also launched. Throughout the former’s run, which ended in 2011, a lot of footage was compiled by MTV at awards shows, specials, studio appearances and more. Now, it can all be yours spread across six DVDs.

Longtime R.E.M. manager Bertis Downs said the following about the box set:

“It occurred to us that there’s all this footage of some of the band’s absolute career highlights sitting in some MTV vaults in London and New York– and thanks to a lot of effort and digging and arranging, this is our chance to share that music with various generations of R.E.M. fans in a pretty unique release. And Alexander Young’s documentary is a fine way to tell the story of R.E.M. through its various twists and turns, as captured in real time by MTV’s cameras– it has some great funny bits too!”